Blood Brothers Read Free Page B

a young gang member is sitting on the lap of a passed-out customer. Two of his mates are walking up and down in front of the niche, gesturing to their chum: “Go on, mate!” Pull the wallet out of his pocket, and give it to us …
    Standing at the bar between two gang bosses is a girl, a child of fifteen or sixteen. Cheekily she’s put on the leather jacket of one of the young men, who doesn’t need it, and his peaked cap, and is now tossing back one schnapps after another with the two of them. The sickly pale face with its blue veins at the temples convulses with disgust, but then the dirty little paw reaches for the glass to drink to one of the leather jackets. The girl’s mouth opens: almost no teeth, just isolated blackened stumps. She’s not even sixteen …
    Behind the bar stands the watchful landlord. In a good blue suit and spic-and-span collar, the only one in the whole bar. Music blares out without a break. Incessant comings and goings. Everyone here is either young or underage. Many turn up with rucksacks and parcels. They go directly to the bathroom, the hideously dirty toilets. Brief exchange, unpacking,packing, money changes hands. A schnapps at the bar. Gone. Police raids are not infrequent.
    The girl, legless by now, goes reeling from table to table, offering herself. Oh, Friedel, showing off again, they say, otherwise unmoved by the sorry spectacle of a drunken child offering her scrawny charms. Rückerklause, a kind of home from home for those who don’t have a home. The forever-hungry boys have demolished the rolls and the liver sausage, and two potato pancakes each. They lean back contentedly, draw on their ciggies, sip their beer, and hum along to the tunes on the loudspeaker. “…   Auf die Dauer, lieber Schatz, ist mein Herz kein Ankerplatz  …” They’re full, the bar feels warm. They’re starting to feel drowsy. Their heads sink. Only Jonny is sitting up, smoking, watchful. He pays the tab for them all. Then he counts up what he’s got left. All of eight marks. Where will they go tonight? The very cheapest hostel takes fifty pfennigs for the use of a bug-ridden mattress. That comes to four-fifty, which would mean almost nothing left for tomorrow. Jonny racks his brains for a cheaper option. Lets them sleep. He leaves word with the waiter to tell them to meet him at Schmidt’s at eight.

2
    THE NIGHTTIME EQUIVALENT to the Rückerklause is Schmidt’s on Linienstrasse. Of course it’s busy and there’s a din of brass band music all day here as well. But, after dark, the bustling little bar becomes a thronging, teeming scene. The beer tap isn’t idle for a minute, and every chair is occupied twice over. And whoever hasn’t got one at all leans against the stage or just stands anywhere he can, beer glass in hand. The inevitable paper chains, essential for producing a festive atmosphere, are permanently shrouded in thick tobacco fumes, even though a ventilator is doing its best to restore law and order to the air. The band plays energetically and without a break. Generous rounds of beer and shorts sustain them. Sustain them to the point that the alcohol starts to affect the tunefulness of their playing. That’s when Schmidt’s really comes into its own. Then the whole bar becomes one roaring foot-stamping chorus.
    Jonny needs to dig up his eight fellows from various nooks and crannies to tell them he’s scoped out a cheap billet for the night. Two marks for the whole lot of them. It’s in a warehouse on Brunnenstrasse. For two marks the nightwatchman will let them in at ten. But at six o’clock tomorrow morning they’ll have to be on their way again. Straw and large cratesthey can curl up inside are provided. At half past nine the gang set off.
    On the stroke of ten, they’re all close to the billet. Three of them are at the gate. The others are waiting nearby in the passage, to nip in the second the nightwatchman opens the door. Before they even hear him, there’s a furious